This wearable will deliver your caffeine fix through your skin

It's promising all of the highs with none of the lows

How much do you rely on caffeine to get through your day? Do you take two cups of coffee? Maybe three? Or do you prefer a bottle of juice that’s mostly just liquefied sugar? Whatever form it comes in, most of us need some kind of caffeine hit to get through that mid-afternoon slump. Unfortunately, not too long after the productive high, there’s an inevitable crash and we find ourselves slumping over to the kettle or out to the shop to source our next fix. It can often feel like taking one step back just to take two forward.

Fortunately, a new wearable wants to feed our caffeine addiction without these time-consuming highs and lows by feeding caffeine directly into the bloodstream. Now, that sounds like a mildly horrifying prospect, but Joule is a bracelet that contains FDA approved transdermal patches which deliver caffeine through the skin on your wrist. Each patch is the equivalent of one cup of coffee, and they work kind of like nicotine patches, delivering a steady stream of caffeine to the body over a period of four hours, giving wearers a long-term steady alertness rather than rollercoaster highs and lows.

The patches are safe to wear whilst you actually consume a cup of coffee or an energy drink, they’ll just balance your energy so you can go longer before your next fix, so theoretically the bracelet could be used to help wean wearers off of their caffeine addiction. Though we’re not sure how effective it would be, or whether the bracelet would just be used to justify drinking more coffee.

Joule isn’t a particularly attractive wearable, being a simple silicon band available in pink, blue, or black (there’s also a watch version available but that’s even worse) but its creators seem to be concentrating more on touting its other benefits, such as avoiding staining of the teeth and long coffee shop queues. The band is hypo-allergenic and adjustable to ensure the patch is in contact with the wearer’s skin so that their body heat is able to activate it.

We'd rather avoid Joule Time

If a more efficient means of getting your caffeine fix has been something you’ve been looking for, you can back Joule on Indiegogo now. It’s seeking $15000 and currently has $9730 with 25 days of the campaign still to go. Contributing $29 (£20) will secure you a Joule starter kit which contains a bracelet and 30 patches. Another pack of 30 patches will cost an extra $27 (£18) and the product aims to ship in July 2016.